Barkhad Abdi Overview

Barkhad Abdi was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. After a civil war broke out, his family moved to Yemen. When Barkhad was 14, the family moved again, this time to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Barkhad was working as a limousine driver when he saw a story on TV announcing that film producers were looking for local Somalis to play roles in a movie starring Tom Hanks. He went, with hundreds of others, to audition. After several callbacks, he was called in and met director Paul Greengrass, who told him he...
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